Finally Getting Rid of the Marginals.

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Finally Getting Rid of the Marginals.

Flores, who would have turned 19 in August, was the 11th San Antonian killed in action in Gulf War II and the third Jay graduate to die in the war on terrorism.

Army Pfc. Anthony Scott Miller, 19, was killed by enemy fire in Iraq on April 7, 2003. Lt. Col. Albert E. Smart, 41, died May 28, from a non combat-related illness while serving in Afghanistan.”

(From Express News, read full story)

The above excerpt from San Antonio's Express News discusses the untimely death of a kid who, just months before, had visited his high-school and shocked everyone who knew his looks at graduation time, then including spiked hair with green highlights with his now short hair, army regulation uniform and talk of “what he hoped to do with his career”.

The military, and the marine corp in particular make it plain impossible to obtain simple information such as total active duty personnel per birth year, unless one is able to obtain a Supreme Court ruling for it or the rough equivalent, which leaves any attempt at serious journalism somewhat crippled. After all, if one does not have the sources, one is forced to speculate, and then everything can be dismissed as “pure speculations” and maybe even used to clip some wings off the all too nosy 4th power.

There exist, however, scattered reports here and there, that we will lend our attention to, for a second.

“When Capt. Larry Dibble wanders into Greece Olympia High School, just outside Rochester, he is greeted with smiles and handshakes. Teachers invite him into their classrooms to talk to students about joining the Marine Corps. The school provides an almost-complete list of student names and telephone numbers. In another suburb, at Fairport High School, Dibble is barred from setting up a recruiting table. Appointments are required to talk to students, and interviews are allowed only in the guidance office. The school will release student contact details only with written parental approval.”

(From the Arkansas Democrat Gazette, read full story)

Since the No Child Left Behind Act requires high schools to hand over students’ names, addresses and telephone numbers to military recruiters as a condition of receiving federal aid, it is essentially at the discretion of school management to pick the worse of two evils. Either not disclose information and face the bureaucratic wrath of the Department of Defense or disclose them and face the media wrath of parents and families. The above excerpt illustrates precisely this difference of balance. Sometimes school officials prefer to humor the recruiters. Sometimes school officials prefer to humor the parents.

For the sake of argument, let us suppose the military recruiters are more or less similar, following the same procedures, the same guidebooks, based on the same laws. The difference then can only be explained by the other half of that balance, parents and families. Sometimes they are influential enough to effectively bar the recruiters from entering the school. Sometimes they are not.

"They're not going to all the schools. They're going to the schools where they figure the kids will have less chance to go to college," said U.S. Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Washington. "It's an insidious kind of draft, quite frankly."

“The best, current estimate is that there are approximately 69,300 foreign-born -- nearly one-fourth of whom were born in the Philippines -- currently serving in the U.S. armed forces. That number represents close to 5 percent of the U.S. active duty total. Of the first 10 Californians fighting in U.S. uniform killed in Iraq, five of them were not Americans.” (From CNN, read full story)

On the 7th of June, some sort of explosion claimed the life of Capt Phillip T Esposito and 1st Lt Louis E Allen near the town of Tikrit. Originally thought a mortar round, eventually sgt Alberto Martinez was charged.

Sgt. Aaron Stanley, a 23-year-old veteran of the Iraq war, was convicted of shooting two fellow soldiers to death last year at his farmhouse will serve life in prison with no chance of parole, a military jury decided Saturday. Stanley was convicted of killing Staff Sgt. Matthew Werner, 30, of Oxnard, California, and Spc. Christopher D. Hymer, 23, of Nevada, Missouri.

(From CNN, read full story)

A few elements remain then. Firstly, there exists a specific pattern of military recruiting activity in high-schools, that does not match the pattern of recruiting activity in colleges and in other places. And, more importantly, it is not of a different intensity, it is differently skewed. High schools in zones hit by poverty and depression, and in zones inhabited mostly by minorities receive significantly more attention.

Secondly, as it is estimated, because actual numbers have not yet been disclosed officially, the percent of non Americans and non whites in the total of US casualties in the past two years is significantly larger than the percent of non Americans and non whites in the total of US troops.

Thirdly, serious and unexplainable breaches of military discipline, as serious as murdering of superiors have occurred in at least two instances.

If someone was to say that youngsters of economically underprivileged families and minority ethnic backgrounds were specifically targeted by a governmental organization and then, without their consent (and by consent we mean freely given and informed agreement) forced them in situations which had death or severe bodily harm as a probable consequence, we would have to agree the above elements would be highly consistent with such a scenario.

Would these mean the military, and especially the US Marine Core actively target minorities and other groups at a social disadvantage to be sent to war, usually with as little training as at all possible, only to be returned home in a box at the earliest available date ? Who would be surprised the parents and family are denied basic courtesy such as being present at the funeral, after all these parents and families have already proven they are not powerful enough to prevent the government from enlisting their children ?

Is the Department of Defense merely preying on the weak and gullible ? Or is it consciously and deliberately implementing a strategy to physically exterminate people based on their ethnic background and economic power, something that would, in fact, qualify as genocide under the Geneva Convention ? Or do we just have a particularly badly chosen collection of anecdotes on which, of course, any attempt to draw conclusions is bound to fail ?

Frankly, I do not know. Of course, the Department of Defense could easily prove these elements wrong, by doing as little as releasing a few bits of data, showing how many of the people serving in active duty are black, how many are Hispanic, how many come from households with an income under 100,000 a year, as compared to how many are white, and how many come from households with income over 1 million. We could then compare those with country-wide demographics and know for a fact. It could show us how many people in the military are 19, how many 20, how many 22 and how many 39 or 45. I for one can not wait forever for them to not answer, and so I have little choice but to write “highly speculative and unsubstantiated journalistic fiction”. Which, for all we know at this point, is perfectly true and as real as it gets.

13 silly kids will never be heard from again.

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